Social Mechanics: The Engines Behind Everything Multiplayer

 

This talk was delivered twice: once at GDC Online, and then again at the main GDC as part of the Social Games Summit. The second time around, I added social-game-specific extra content, so there’s two versions of the slide deck below.

Original talk

Social Games Summit version

Video

Here is a free video of the Social Games Summit version.

The video of the original version is available behind a GDCVault paywall.

 

  2 Responses to “Social Mechanics: The Engines Behind Everything Multiplayer”

  1. Blog: Designing more social multiplayer games via the Trust Spectrum | | FPS-Gaming Blog says:
    March 20, 2018 at 5:02 am

    […] additional interesting observation is that in practice, most advanced social mechanics are actually about working around a lack of trust among participants. For example, LARPing systems […]

  2. Gamasutra: Raph Koster's Blog - What Drives Retention - Gamer News Online says:
    February 1, 2019 at 2:17 am

    […] of extremely powerful things like mutual obligation, economic exchange, group identity, and so on (see my old talk on social mechanics for tons more). Looser connections and community can often work better than a tight-knit […]